The present invention relates to a secure and efficient method and system for embedding machine-readable and executable data in a printed document and linking them to networked computer resources.
Electronic documents including files, documents, data stores, executable files and the like are increasingly important in business and personal computing applications. Notwithstanding the widespread use of such electronic files, the use of printed media, in particular printed documents, remains essential for various reasons. In particular, printed documents have been shown to be more easily and efficiently read and comprehended, are generally cheaper to generate and distribute, and are desired in many industries and professions over prime electronic documents since tampering is more likely to be noticed than with electronic documents.
Electronic documents and printed media both enjoy advantages in certain situations, and may coexist and be used interchangeably depending on the application. The recent use of dense two-dimensional bar codes such as PDF417 has allowed the encoding of electronic data in a bar code symbol and the printing of such bar code symbol on a document. This technology is in its infancy and it is desired to implement secure, efficient methods of transferring data in electronic form on a printed document, referred to herein as an intelligent document. This enables the linking of electronic files with print media.
In addition to enabling the printing and distribution of electronic documents embedded in printed media, it is desired to enable a user to be given access to networked resources through such machine-readable symbologies. That is, in addition to providing a complete electronic file as an intelligent document, it is desired to be able to grant access to a targeted user to files found on an external resource, such as a computer network such as the Internet. That is, although a user is able in theory to enter a URL (uniform resource locator) into a browser program to obtain the Internet-based resource, such data entry on a keyboard is less than desirable.
However, human readable printed source addresses, and especially URL""s, are particularly difficult to manually enter in software programs, such as web browsers, due to their length and use of complex and unfamiliar symbols. If the characters in an address are not entered exactly, retrieval is prevented or, in a limited number of cases, a legal but incorrect source is accessed. This is especially true when URLs incorporate foreign languages and/or complex query instructions to on-line databases, as is increasingly frequent in many web sites. In addition, the inability to type or otherwise manually enter symbolic address information due to either a disability or lack of training complicates use of on-line information resources such as the Internet and World Wide Web for millions of individuals.
Thus it would be highly desirable to develop a method which automatically links particular sections of printed matter appearing on documents to on-line resources, whereby a user could, with a minimum of effort or experience, access on-line resources located at a variety of URL""S. This concept is not limited to on-line resources, but is equally applicable to accessing a variety of electronic resources within the user""s immediate network as well.
It is widely anticipated that Internet and World Wide Web access will increasingly be provided through interactive cable television via web-ready televisions and set-top conversion units used in conjunction with conventional television receivers. In this home entertainment environment, it would be difficult to use keyboards for address entry due to both lack of typing skill and the cumbersome placement of these data entry components. Moreover, many so-called WebTVs do not utilize a standard keyboard, but only allow primitive keyed input via a crude remote control device.
Thus, a method which would eliminate typing and allow users to directly link printed addresses and query scripts to electronic information sources would be highly desirable.
In many instances the providers of on-line resources would find it necessary, for both commercial and security reasons, to restrict access to only those users who are authorized through a variety of licensing schemes. Many authorization techniques are in existence such as those disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,388,158, hereby incorporated by reference, however, none have been incorporated in a method which provides access to on-line and local resources via printed matter.
Thus it would be advantageous to provide access authentication of potential users prior to granting access to on-line resources as well as local resources in order to guarantee that only authorized users could obtain access to restricted information and that the document was in fact created by a licensed source.
It would also be advantageous for such a system to incorporate a level of encryption, whereby confidential information could be transmitted by means of publicly accessible telephony circuits. For example, commercial users wishing to utilize laptop computers equipped with modems operating over public telephone lines at hotels, press centers, exhibitions, fairs and the like realize the risk of disclosing sensitive information to competitors and would appreciate the added feature of encrypted transmissions in order to provide greater security against misappropriation.
In accord with the present invention a method of accessing electronic resources via machine readable data embedded on a document is provided which comprises compressing input data with a transmitter adapted to save a first bandwidth using a compression method adapted to minimize utilization of bandwidth by the compressed input data while retaining substantially all information content of the input data and appending a compression flag to the compressed input data indicative of the compression method enabling a receiver to decompress the compressed input data. The compression step further comprises utilizing a compression dictionary adapted to map the elements and strings of the input data to minimized representations having redundancies deleted. The compression dictionary may be appended to the compressed input data (as cleartext or cyphertext) under circumstances where a bandwidth occupied by the appended compression dictionary is less than the bandwidth saved by the step of compressing the input data. The compression dictionary may also be selected by the receiver independently from the transmitter independently indexes, pointer registration, application restricted subsets or customized according to the input data content. Also the input data may be encrypted, and an encryption flag appended which is indicative of the encryption method enabling decryption via public or private key cryptosystems as well as utilizing various authentication techniques such as digital signatures to ensure that the document was created by a licensed user.